Abstract. This paper reports on an iterative design process for a serious game, which aims to raise situational awareness among different stakeholders in a logistics value chain by introducing multi-user role-playing games. It does so in several phases: After introducing the field of logistics as a problem domain for an educational challenge, it firstly describes the design of an educational board game for the field of disruption handling in logistics processes. Secondly, it describes how the board game can be realized in an open-source mobile serious games platform and identifies lessons learned based on advantages and issues found. Thirdly, it derives requirements for a re-design of the mobile game and finally draws conclusions.Keywords: mobile learning, game-based learning, multi-user games, logistics, multi-role game-design
IntroductionDecision-making in sociotechnical systems is complex and error-prone due to interdependencies of tasks, conflicting goals in distributed responsibilities and a lack of information among the various stakeholders involved in decision-making [1]. The active sharing of relevant situational information might help to improve shared situational awareness (SSA) among the stakeholders involved [2], which can lead to improved decision making processes within sociotechnical systems. Therefore, it is crucial to understand the role of communication among stakeholders [3]. The SALOMO 1 project aims to provide training solutions to create situational awareness [2] to cope with this situation and to highlight the importance of communication. As multi-stakeholder decision situations confronted with time restrictions and incomplete information such as emergencies have been recognised as a relevant field (pp. 183-196). Springer International Publishing. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24258-3 2 for training [4][5][6], a multi-user board game has been designed, which emulates the decision process in the port environment. The goal of the game is to sensitize stakeholders in a value chain about communication and inter-dependencies. The game was conceived to achieve a set of key objectives [7]:• Understanding the impact of increased shared situational awareness (SSA) on individual, group and system level performance • Setting a foundation to identify measures to increase SSA • Offering a frame of reference to assess SSA in the organization and network • Serving as a training tool for disruption managementThe game focuses on how to handle disruptions in the transportation network, and whether and when to communicate information relating to the disturbance to other players. Several roles are played in the game; the vessel planner, the yard planner, the control tower, the resource planner and the sales department. Thus, the paper-based version of the game requires no more and no less than five players.To improve the scalability of the board game, we aim to provide a computerized version of the board game, simplifying the game distribution and execution by providing an automated execution environme...